If you’ve ever been scrolling around on Pinterest and been in total awe of the gorgeous home decor photos out there, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Half of what makes those photos gorgeous is in the editing. (Just when you thought you had enough to worry about in learning all the doohickies on a DSLR camera, you get that curveball thrown at you, right? It’s okay. It’s actually fun.)
Last week, when I shared my 8 Tips to Revolutionize Your DIY Blog Photography, I had no idea I’d get such a huge response from you guys! The one request I got the most was from a lot of Picmonkey and Canva users who wanted tips on switching to Lightroom and taking their photography to the next level.

Up until November a few months ago, I was still using Picmonkey for all of my blog’s photo editing too. I had actually purchased Adobe Lightroom months before, but I couldn’t seem to work up the nerve to dive in and figure it out. I was really intimidated. (Are you feeling the same way right now?)







It is amazing how much clarity can give a photo an extra pop. In Picmonkey, I sometimes ran into the problem of my photo ending up more grainy after enhancing my clarity (because again, JPEG is compressed so it will do this to you).
Enhancing my clarity in a RAW file on Lightroom is much more appealing to me.
5. Increase sharpening.

I love getting sharp-happy in my editing. In Picmonkey, I usually got into trouble because, again, my photos would just end up grainy. Sharpening on the RAW file on Lightroom makes it super crisp. See how much I sharpened it? +115! But it’s not grainy one bit, so I can get away with it.
6. Adjust highlights, shadows, whites, and blacks.
These settings give me tons of flexibility in adjusting my contrasts. Unlike in Picmonkey, I have a lot more control over my lighting balance, so my photos don’t get too washed out with an increased exposure. I’m able to add back in my shadows and blacks as I brighten. They’re fun to play around with too.

(Little OCD moment confession: Â Adjusting numbers in all of my settings drives me crazy. I always have to adjust them in even numbers or multiples of five. I have to consciously ignore my white balance at the top there ending in a 9 and 1. I’m the same way with my radio and TV volume. And my husband does it too. Maybe we’re both weird.)
7. Create a Preset. (optional)
Whoever came up with this feature when designing Lightroom is a genius. If there was only one reason for me to switch from online photo editing, this would have been it right here.













I would also add increase contrast. I can get my exposure and white balance correct in camera most of the time manual mode. But, kick up that contrast? Oh yes! It looks great afterwards on my food and house photos. I would encourage everyone to try that out as well.
Check the noise reduction though when you increase your clarity. It does a great job in decreasing the noise in the dark areas.
Good tips! Thanks, Mary!
This just changed my blogging life!! The thought of manually adding my watermark to every.single.photo. is enough to drive me mad!! This is such a great post!
Yay! So glad it could help, Sarah! Adding watermarks drives me batty too. I don’t even do it anymore just because it’s easier when working with magazines and on Instagram not to have one. But Lightroom was definitely one of the best investments I made for my blog, both in photo quality and saving time. I was ready to pull my hair out with how long it used to take to edit photos before.